I am the Chief Insights Officer for Forbes Media responsible for managing Forbes' Insights thought leadership research division, as well as the Forbes CMO Practice. I am the co-author of "Profitable Brilliance: How Professional Services Firms Become Thought Leaders" now available on Amazon http://amzn.to/OETmMz as the previously published "In the Line of Money: Branding Yourself Strategically to the Financial Elite" available on Amazon http://amzn.to/AuHRN9
Bruce H. Rogers is the co-author of the recently published book Profitable Brilliance: How Professional Service Firms Become Thought Leaders

Bill Nussey Navigates Silverpop's Future With IBM

After talking with several companies about combining, Nussey said he and IBM knew almost immediately that they were meant for each other.“It was the first major meeting with IBM up in New York,” Nussey said. “We were in the meeting for about 15 minutes. We looked at each other…and we knew we had seen home.”

Nussey believes both companies share similar visions and goals. “IBM really was the first company to recognize and publicize the emerging role of CMO as chief technologist,” he said. “So they have been on a mission to understand and serve the CMO years before anyone else. Not that technology is the goal, but you can use technology to change things, and that’s always in been my beliefs. Marketing has been my passion for the last 20 years, and so technology can make a real impact on marketing.”

Nussey has always considered himself a software person. He got a degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University and started his “first global software company” while still in college. “That was called Nussey Systems, and we sold desktop software across the world,” he said. “I was in college traveling all over the planet doing deals.”

He sold that company, went to Harvard Business School and then joined the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Greylock in 1996. He helped fund an e-commerce consulting company in Atlanta called IXL and a few years later became president and eventually CEO. “It was a services company and we did strategy, technology and design all over the world,” he recalled. “It was a great time, but I dearly missed software, which has been my true passion. “

That’s when he joined Silverpop, which was also based in Atlanta. Though the company is now part of IBM, Nussey and his team will remain in the Georgia capital. “My heart and my family are down here in Atlanta, so we love it.” Nussey said. “And IBM has done an amazing job allowing people to live where they want and to work where they want. I think you can look inside of IBM and see a lot of glimpses of how the future of the business world’s going to be.”

Silverpop is now part of IBM’s marketing arm, which has been re-branded “ExperienceOne” group, which Nussey says best describes the focus on individual consumers. “So with the services we offer at IBM, we’re going to make that promise of individualized experiences far more realized,” Nussey concluded. “And the great thing is that everybody benefits. Businesses benefit, consumers, business buyers—everybody benefits. And that’s the art of the win-win.”

Bruce H. Rogers is the co-author of the recently published book Profitable Brilliance: How Professional Service Firms Become Thought Leaders

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